The idea was that we would send over some of our best and brightest military personnel to serve as advisors to train the New Iraqui Army.  Now the politicians and generals in Washington who cooked up this operation would have us believe that in the not too distant future the New Iraqui Army would assume increasing responsibility for the security of their homeland.  Capt. Eric Navarro, USMCR knows better.  After spending eight long months in Iraq as one of those advisors he felt compelled to write a book about his experiences there. "God Willing: My Wild Ride with the New Iraqui Army" chronicles Navarro's sometimes harrowing and almost always frustrating time there.  "God Willing" calls into question the wisdom of our mission in Iraq and documents the challenges our military personnel face each and every day to try to make it all work.  As Capt. Navarro points out time and time again it is almost always a case of "two steps forward and one step back".

In order to highlight the kinds of obstacles that Capt. Navarro and his compadres in the Advisor Support Team (a/k/a The Drifters) were forced to deal with during their tour of duty in Iraq I will quote liberally from a paragraph on page 212 of "God Willing" which seemed to neatly sum it all up: "Too many pieces were being thrown into the puzzle and none of them fit neatly together, no matter how much the President or the generals wanted them to.  American contractors, Iraqui civilians, Iraqui solders--all were mixed together with marines, soldiers and sailors from a multitude of different units.  No one person was in charge of it all.  We were living with a complete breakdown of command and control in a combat environment."   Get the picture?  And when you discover that soldiers in the New Iraqui Army are allowed to take one weeks vacation each month to spend time with their families you will begin to empathize with the intense frustration of Capt. Navarro and the others who have had to put their own lives on hold and travel half way around the world in order to try to stabilize the situation in Iraq.  In addition, Navarro points to a number of other serious logistical problems that impede real progress in Iraq.

As someone who has never served in the military and therefore is not familiar with military nomenclature I found that some of the terminology in "God Willing" was foreign to me.  For some readers this may prove to be a bit of an obstacle to fully comprehending the issues being discussed here.  Those with military experience will probably glean more from "God Willing" than the rest of us.  Having said that, it is extremely important that the rest of us get up to speed on these matters.  The citizenry at large cannot question policies that they really do not understand.  In "God Willing: My Wild Ride with the New Iraqui Army" Capt. Eric Navarro succeeds in arming his readers with badly needed information.  "God Willing" has certainly changed the way I view events in Iraq.  This is a timely and well-written book that deserves your attention.   Highly recommended!